BRIC-A-BRAC: Glitter Gulch

A side effect of our most recent Depressing Vacation was that I got to experience, for the very first time, the kingdom of vice and geegaws that is Las Vegas, Nevada. It is possible that I was previously in Sinville as an infant, but this was the first time I was in town with working memory cells. And from the first moment we drove down the Strip, the essential truth of Las Vegas was clear to me.

This place is nuts.

It's hard to say what finally sealed the deal for me. There are three possibilities that I've isolated:

1) It might be when I realized that I could still see the beam that shoots out of the top of the Luxor when we were an hour down the interstate.

Vegas is -- news flash -- big on light and glitz. Every casino -- even the trashy ones that could be torn down any day now, like the Frontier -- has a huge, flashing sign, usually with some sort of Jumbotron advertising the various concerts, magic shows and strip shows contained within. It's a street turned into a carnival midway. The sun never sets on Vegas, because a thousand little suns are always standing by to fill in the gap. The moment we checked into our hotel, we also had to check the drapes, because we knew we would need to block out the 1000-watt kleig lights aimed at us to illuminate the building.

This should appeal to me. As my wife is fond of pointing out, I'm a big fan of Times Square in New York. This is a place equally dominated by neon and commercials. So why do I find the Strip exhausting, when I find Times Square invigorating? I think it's scope. Times Square is closed in. It has limits. If you're at one end, you can see the other. And you can know that there is a way out. A couple years ago, I was at a theater festival in New York, and we were at a bar around midnight or so, and it became clear that one of our number, Joey Cranford, had yet to see the electrical wonderland of Broadway. So we went at once. We walked a whopping two blocks, and there we were, bathed in color and noise. It was a magical effect, like Dorothy walking into Oz.

Vegas, on the other hand, doesn't seem to end. Las Vegas Boulevard (the actual name of the road) is deceptively long, and no matter where you are, it seems to go on as far as the eye can see. The glitter isn't a district or a neighborhood or a square. It's everything. Mind you, this isn't actually true. There's a lot more city out there, but you're never going to see any of that. When you're on the Strip, the show goes on and on.

2) It might be when I saw the man with the oxygen tank sitting at the same slot machine for over four hours.

One of the greatest disappointments of Las Vegas was the discovery that the old slot machines -- the ones that took coins and dispensed coins and had handles to pull and made happy dinging noises -- are gone. They've been replaced with cold computer terminals with impossibly confusing rules that are never explained and that spit out pieces of paper telling you how much you've won, and that only if you've had the wisdom to get out. Hundreds of thousands of these machines, with only different names to distinguish them.

So it was all the more baffling to me that people would sit at these machines for hours on end, pressing the "Max Bet" button over and over in a rote, emotionless fashion. And it's not like they were waiting for the big score. Twice on our last day in Vegas, I watched "slot machines" ringing up wins approaching thousands of credits, and the players couldn't have cared less. There was no joy. No fun. No thrill of victory. It looked like work, only with free drinks.

And my introduction to this was at the Wynn, where an old man with an oxygen tank sat punching away at one of these life-sucking kiosks. And we walked around, and visited shops, and looked at some weird water show, and saw Avenue Q. And after all that, the old man hadn't moved. He was going to hell in a coin bucket, and didn't even seem to care for the ride.

3) But it was probably when we made our way to the second floor of the Venetian shops, which were designed to look like an exact replica of an Italian plaza, complete with gondolas, and for a moment I thought I might not be able to breathe.

If you're picking a casino in Vegas, there are really three ways to go:

Old School
These are the ones that, as my friend Ted explained, opened for business at least 25 years ago and have watched the town change around them while they stood completely still. They have bad color schemes and still think filling an entire room with mirrors is a good design choice. They fit your impression of what Vegas is supposed to be like, but they don't necessarily wear it well. The Tropicana, the Flamingo, and the Sahara all go here. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; I kind of enjoyed the Sahara, even though it felt like it was in the Strip Ghetto. But they definitely look their age.

(These are not to be confused with the Fremont Street casinos, which are their own kind of Old School, with lots of smoke and wood paneling and the sense that this whole gambling thing could be outlawed at any moment and we'll all have to pack our things and git. Now that's taking you back.)

Theme Park
Welcome to our living cartoon, these say. We picked a theme, and it's everywhere. Sometimes the effect is really cheesy, like Excalibur, which is what you'd get if you went to Medieval Times, but had to stay for two days instead of two hours. Sometimes it's all about the facade, like Caesar's Palace, which has just enough theming to cover the walls, and then really doesn't give a crap. At its best, it can have real charm. My favorite of all the casinos I saw was probably Paris, which evoked not only another place but another time. It was elegant, but playful. It actually felt enjoyable, and you could walk through it without having it drilled into your head that you were in a casino.

Of course, there's no finer example of the theme park casino than New-York New-York (which must have those dashes in there for trademark reasons or something), which even goes so far as to have its own ride. (That would be the Manhattan Express rollercoaster, which my colleague Padraic pointed out goes beyond the usual sense of danger and may actually be deadly.) New-York has draped itself in so much decoration that you immediately get lost. It's gleefully over-the-top. Even if you don't think the joke is funny, it's a very well-told joke. It's Disney World without the tasteful restraint.

Nouveau Riche
You know that charmingly Trump-y notion that expensive things are classy? That's the classic Trump move: "I'll build a tower that's all gold, because gold is money and money is class and I'm made of money, baby." Basically, it's remarkable that Trump is only just now building a tower in Las Vegas. (For the record, so is his ex-wife. It's that kind of town.) This kind of casino just wants to overwhelm you with how rich it is, and to revel in the sheer expense of it all. Atop the heap sit Wynn and Bellagio, boastful and proud, dropping cash in a heartbeat. (Mandalay Bay is kind of going for this. But they're stuck at the end of the Strip, so they can't lord it over anyone.) You can't make it big and pricey enough here.

These categories aren't absolute. For example, Treasure Island started out Theme Park, but they've been trying to change their image and become a little more New Money. Or the MGM Grand, which has been around, hints at a movie theme and has a lion exhibit, and plays with gold decoration all over. It has little bits of all three.

The Venetian is a Theme Park for the Nouveau Riche, and that's where I had my attack. Rather than a cartoon version of Venice, this place wants you to think it's giving you the real deal. The shop facades are intricately detailed. The ceilings are painted to resemble an almost perfect sky. (Somebody in Las Vegas is getting paid big bucks to paint ceilings to look like skies, by the way.) There's a museum -- affiliated with both the Guggenheim and the Hermitage -- with classic art. The features aren't made of plaster, like the Luxor's grand Sphinx. The Venetian is real stone. The message I got, loud and clear: "You're in Venice, bitch." It was absolutely overwhelming. The place is hyper-real, and instead of trying to awe you with flashy beads, it demands that you see the details and admire them.

Say what you will about Vegas, but it definitely got a strong emotional reaction out of me. I'm still processing it all, so you can expect a few more entries on the subject in the next couple weeks.

Because this time, what happened in Vegas is not staying there.